During times of fear and endless betrayals, a man was frequently found guilty of treason for no

eligible reason because of politic issues. It happened to Napoléon Bonaparte in 1815, as he was
coming back to the motherland after a burning defeat against the England that signed the end of
is reign as the emperor of the French. It was also a time of romance and honor, as the story of
those who succeeded upon their enemies were seen as hero. I’m of course talking of the 19 th
century. No wonder that in such a contrasted atmosphere were born some legendary writer
such as Victor Hugo and Émile Zola, whom texts passed through history like a knife in warm
butter. One of those texts is the infamous novel of one thousand and eighty-two pages, the
count of monte cristo written by Alexandre Duma… or was it?

Here, I am not trying to take out the credit of this book, it is a very well written story, a true
jewel of the romantic current that took years and years to establish and refine in the literary
culture; but I’m trying to put credit where it’s due. Yeah, that’s right, like a lot of peoples, I think
that Alexandre Dumas is not the writer. A first look at his history show us that he was born on
July 24, 1802, in Villers-Cotterêts, France, son of a mother named Marie Louise Labouret and of
a father named Thomas-Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie, a French general. His father change his
name to Duma when he entered the Napoleonian army. He also died in prison due to a
disagreement whit Napoléon over his Egyptian campaign. The young Alexandre was schooled by
a priest, learned the basics and quit quite young to go to Paris. There, he worked as a scribe for
the duc d'Orléans (later named King Louis Philippe) during the 1830 revolution. This man was of
a great influence on him, and was later caught on tremendous scandals of exploitation as well as
being a notorious liar. He then starts making some novels who earned him a few bucks and a
name. He then met whit Auguste Maquet, himself a writer, who wanted to become famous. He
took him under his wing as what we call a ‘’nègre litteraire’’ in pure French fashion, a people
who is writing for someone else, without recognition from the public. It’s from then that some
title as ’’the three musketeers’’ were published under his name, but in a completely different
style. There were no reference to his new apprentice whatsoever in the book, even though he
admitted later that he was working whit him while writing it, referring to him as an ‘’associate’’.
Historians have then make the assumption that Auguste was mad at him for what he as done
and wrote a whole story themed around the revenge, in the same characteristic style as before,
named the count of Monte Cristo. The rest of his life is of not so great interest for us, but in
general, he died at the age of 68, and had a child whit one of his many underage mistresses.

The mean theme of this story is vengeance, as the principal character first objective is to kill and
humiliate ‘’those who shall suffer’’ ,as he refer to them. The story first start like any one of this
kind. Edmond Dantès, the mean character, is living a dream life. He is young, has beloved family
members, soon to became the youngest captain the sea as ever saw and on top of all, he is at
few hours to marry himself with the most beautiful girl of Marseille, the sweet Mercedes. But
such luck brings people to envy him. So three antagonists make their way to convict him for
treason, one envying his money, one his grade and the last one his wife. That’s how he got
arrested during his wedding. He have been incarcerated in Chateau d’If dugeon where he met a
bishop after few years of labor. He escape knowing the position of a Spanish treasure, known
only by the bishop before him, and made his way into a crew of corsair before finally making it
emerge from the earth. Then, he started plotting against ‘’those who shall suffer’’, the three
man in first time then every other one who help them. He built himself a lot of fake identities,
like the count of Monte Cristo, number 34, abbé Busoni, Sinbad the sailor, and lord Wilmore, for
a good example, but there were some other. After understanding the story of Alexandre, there
is place to wonder if Auguste was trying to pass a message to the reader. There are way too
many twist and turn for me to give them all to you but while dealing with sultans, trading with
popes and tricking kings, he create his own army, gained some influence, became a successful
merchant, a warrior, a pirate, a priest, a thief, had two love stories, one with a beauty from
Greece and another one whit an Egyptian slave, built two or three house, a castle, a mansion
and bought way to many properties, including houses, castles, and mansions. He passed half of
his time on sea, a few years in Arabia, few others in America, some of them in London, Madrid,
Bruxell, Paris, etc. In total 20 years passed since he was incarcerated when he finally got his
revenge. The story finish by Edmond reuniting two lovers, Valentine and Max, giving them the
chance that he didn’t get, that is to have someone else setting off the problems caused by other
jealousy. The last pages are his letter to the world, saying that the purpose of life is to wait and
hope, even if that might seems contradictory with the book.

A device that Alexandre use is the tone. He is always walking on the edge of anger but always
find a way to temper it like the use of a metaphor or the description of a sound, like bird
chipping or wave crushing over rocks. The descriptive sequences are used a lot in this book as
the author tries to assure dominance over the time line and over the feelings the reader
express, and that’s in away exactly what the count does whit is misadventures, he hold the bull
by the horn. Both of those device are used to create an effect of control over the reader or in
another perspective, a call for help because of the lack of control, which may lead to harsh
feelings who seek revenge, once we are here…

So as we probably all understand, this book was a death treat, as well as a call for help from
Auguste, but he was never listen to. The man, full of anger, was never brought to light by his
associate who once again signed the story alone. He died few years later from self-inflicted
injuries, without any suicide letter left behind, which is pretty unusual, especially for a writer,
even a ghost one, so maybe was it his last call for forgiveness? We shall never know…